My Linux-experience

I have been using Linux (mostly in a dual-boot environment) since around 1996 or 1997 (Cheapbytes CD from Lehmanns bookstore with Debian 1.24 on a Pentium 133 MHz).

The most recent version of this page has been created with Linux tools alone and is hosted on a Linux box. Some images and older sediments of my site may incorporate Windows-generated images, but nowadays I have switched to Open Source tools to create everything I want to show here.

Beside that I was heavily depending on a stable machine to do my Ph.D., which was one of the two main reasons for switching from Windows NT to SuSE-Linux and finally Fedora and Ubuntu.

Pictures

Because people always want to see screenshots here are some of my home-desktop. They are slightly recursive, the first one shows an editing-session of this HTML-page, running SuSE 7.3/KDE 2.2 with an IceWM-theme, the second one shows the upload of the homepage, running SuSE 8.1/KDE 3.0 with the Quartz theme and some nice tools. The third one is SuSE 9.1 KDE 3.2.1 and Gimp 2.0 the next is from the Fedora Core 3 installation on my AMD Athlon64 running Gnome 2.8 followed by a few shots from the FC6 install with 3D effects enabled. Next Fedora 10 Linux and Fedora 13 Linux and CentOS 6 and currently Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Desktop. Apparently I like blue backgrounds...

Gentoo Linux on Small Systems

Except for the fact, that a small hard disk is quickly filled up by a load of gunk you might not need at all (but which is installed anyway, if you don't select rpm-packages by hand), those distros tend to be painfully slow (the current version of Quanta IS dead-slow even on my AMD Duron 700 (yess, CPUs have arrived ad 6.0 GHz meanwhile, I know)), and take eons to load the desktop (why? I was running Linux on my 486 ages ago).

There seems to be no real hope for a fast-and-small version of SuSE, therefore I had to look for something else.

Enter Gentoo-Linux: (I have to admit, that almost everything which follows, has been stolen from an email I got from a friend, who setup all this on his machine ;-)).

Anyway, if you are interested in my installation-notes for a small-footprint Gentoo-system, read on.

CentOS

Some time ago I had to setup a 64-bit 4-way server and decided to give CentOS a shot. Having ordered a floppy-drive ("who really needs that nowadays") immediately paid off, because the RAID-Controller was not recognized and a newer kernel-module had to be installed from a boot-floppy (not a problem, unless you can't use one).

After everyone decided, that the new GUI for Linux should look like a Smartphone, I moved from Fedora to CentOS 6 (which also has a longer life-time and does not force you to install a new OS every 1,5 years or so).

Ubuntu Linux

Installing Ubuntu 7.10

Read my review on installing Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. I did this recently for one of my older machines, because the old Ubuntu-version was no longer supported.

Installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 bit for XBMC

Installing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit

My last PC died from Capacitor plague after more than 6 years, so I had to buy a new one. CentOS 7 was not quite ready, so I choose the new Ubuntu LTS. Read my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Desktop installation notes.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit

As the update client kept nagging me, that a new version is out, I followed that advice and updated the existing system to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Read my Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop upgrade notes.

Gaming

UT2004 VCTF

Doom 3

Quake 4

X-Plane 8.40

There are some decent games out there, which run natively on Linux (see above :-) ).

With Steam-support the number of games natively supported on Linux has been quite OK recently, although some already wrote it of and -of course- many block buster releases are Windows (or console) only.

Running Windows games on Linux is mostly not fun. Read my Wine and Cedega rant for more on that.